Please join us for a day long guided tour of Delaware’s southeast coastline as we see the restoration of living shorelines occurring in the area.

A hotel block has been reserved at the Hyatt Place Dewey Beach: 1301 Coastal Highway, Dewey Beach, DE 19971; for April 12-14. You can book your hotel through the block here! If you have issues registering online, call 1-855-556-1297 and ask for the Society for Ecological Restoration rate. The group code is G-SFER. The cut off date will be March 24, 2023.

A happy hour event will be held at the end of the day at Dewey Beer Co.

Please register with Meghan Noe Fellows at mnoefellows@inlandbays.org or Robert Wachter at Robert.Wachter@wsp.com by Monday April 3, 2023. Registration fees are $45 for members and $55 for non-members of the chapter.

 

Lightship Overfalls at Lewes Canal Front Living Shoreline

This project was developed by the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary to help Lewes, DE with shoreline stabilization and was completed in partnership with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and the Delaware Living Shorelines Committee. This living shoreline consisted of phased construction, with the older parts completely overtaken by native vegetation, while the younger parts still have the infrastructure exposed. Infrastructure includes oyster castles and coir. You can read more about the project at the following link:

https://news.delaware.gov/2021/08/05/delaware-celebrates-lewes-canal-living-shoreline-project/

 

Delaware Botanic Gardens Living Shoreline

The Delaware Center for the Inland Bays and the Delaware Botanic Gardens at Pepper Creek partnered during the summer and fall of 2020 to build one of Delaware’s most innovative living shoreline projects to stabilize 300 feet of shoreline near Dagsboro. The project was designed by Sovereign Consulting and involved unique, hand-built wood structures (anchor branch toe) that was built by volunteers. This aesthetically pleasing project is demonstrating a nature-based living shoreline constructed with a non-rock solution. You can read more and view a video about the project, and see a listing of other Corporate Partners at the following link:

http://www.delawaregardens.org/in-the-news/2021/1/21/a-new-partnership-for-an-innovative-shoreline-project

 

Sassafras Landing Living Shoreline

The Delaware Center for the Inland Bays, DNREC, and a design team from Cardno developed this approximate 375 linear foot “armored living shoreline” demonstration project along a medium energy system at Sassafras Landing, located at the Delaware Division of Fish and Wildlife’s Assawoman Wildlife Area (AWA) near Frankford, DE. The living shoreline separates the tidal waters of Miller Creek from a 35-acre pond, one of five non-tidal freshwater impoundments within AWA managed for wildlife and ecological diversity. Construction of the toe sill, backfilling, and grading were all performed by the Division of Fish and Wildlife’s Little Creek construction crew, and the planting of 5,200 plugs of native marsh grass was performed in July 2019 by about 2 dozen volunteers, with staff from AWA, Cardno, and the Delaware Center for the Inland Bays overseeing the construction activities.  You can read more about this project at the following links:

https://www.inlandbays.org/wp-content/uploads/Sassafras-Landing-FINAL.pdf

https://wmap.blogs.delaware.gov/2019/09/16/sassafras-landing-a-living-shoreline-demonstration/

 

Read Avenue at Dewey Beach Integrated Living Shoreline and Stormwater Retrofit

The Delaware Center for the Inland Bays, Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT), and the Town of Dewey Beach partnered, with the help of numerous funding partners, on this small living shoreline and stormwater retrofit demonstration project located in an urban setting with stormwater constraints. The project design and permitting was completed by RK&K and Sovereign Consulting beginning in 2017, and construction was completed by Brightfields, Inc. in late 2019, with plants installed in the spring of 2020. The project reduces chronic flooding, uses shell, rock, and buried reinforced structures to create a more natural shoreline to provide fish and wildlife habitat, restored 1,750 square feet of tidal wetlands, and reduced nutrient pollution to the Inland Bays by 15 pounds of nitrogen and 9 pounds of phosphorus each year. You can read more about this project at the following link:

https://www.inlandbays.org/wp-content/uploads/Read-Ave-FINAL.pdf

A PowerPoint presentation showing the progression of the project can be found at the following link:

https://estuaries.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Read-Ave-Presentation_2021-RAE-Living-Shoreline-Workshop_2021-10-18_Final.pdf

Additional Delaware and National Living Shoreline Resources

Delaware Center for the Inland Bays Living Shorelines

https://www.inlandbays.org/projects-and-issues/all/living-shorelines/#:~:text=The%20Delaware%20Center%20for%20the,Bay%20shoreline%20in%20our%20watershed.

Partnership of the Delaware Estuary StoryMap

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/c7b77d6ea8e449db8e2604a75cd98e4d

DNREC Living Shorelines Webpage

https://dnrec.alpha.delaware.gov/watershed-stewardship/wetlands/living-shorelines/

The Nature Conservancy Living Shorelines Cost and Effectiveness Brochure

https://www.conservationgateway.org/ConservationPractices/Marine/crr/library/Documents/Cost%20and%20Effectiveness%20NJ.pdf

Chesapeake Bay Trust Living Shoreline Outreach Implementation Plan for the Chesapeake Bay Program

https://cbtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/Living-Shoreline-Outreach-Implementation-Plan.pdf

Restore America’s Estuaries Living Shorelines from Barriers to Opportunities Special Report

https://estuaries.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Living-Shorelines-From-Barriers-to-Opportunities.pdf